I'm a little surprised that in the article, and in the comments here, there's such a presumption of guilt on the part of the police.
I understand that this is a controversial topic in the US, probably moreso than elsewhere, and for very important reasons, but is it really impartial for the study, the article, or the comments here to draw the conclusion that police were "better behaved" because they were being filmed?
Maybe the public were better behaved when they being filmed.
Maybe the police were, in some cases, behaving as they normally do but the public were less inclined to raise complaints that may have been spurious as they knew there was evidence of the actual exchange.
I don't doubt that behaviour of individual officers is a factor and was likely affected in a positive way here, but I'm deeply skeptical that a 93% drop in complaints is solely down to bad police officers playing nice for the cameras.
The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?
> Maybe the public were better behaved when they being filmed.
This is very much the case. I'm a paramedic, and the police agency in the area got body cameras a few years back. It is extremely common (in my first-hand experience) for folks who have been treated completely respectfully to threaten a complaint. Once it's pointed out the whole incident was on camera, it's amazing how often they drop it right there...
I have very serious concerns about policing in this country. I think they are trained to jump to lethal force far too quickly, and the militarization we have seen over the past decades has led to an 'us vs them' mentality for many officers.
But you're absolutely right that a large chunk of the drop in complaints is almost certainly folks who don't bother pressing an issue once they find out there is video evidence of what happened.
Bu then how does the fact that the drop is on officers with cameras and officers who don't have cameras? The spurious complaints would continue on officers who don't wear them.
That is not at all obvious. There is a large difference in relative power between a citizen and police officer compared to citizen and paramedic. Due to this, I would expect much fewer frivolous complaints against policemen.
Now, I do not mean to write this as a proof that there were no frivolous complaints against police, only that you cannot derive any conclusions from number of such complaints against paramedics.
I'm not talking about paramedics wearing cameras (that would be a HIPAA nightmare...). I'm sharing my personal experience from observing a large number of LEO/citizen interactions (cops and paramedics end up on the same scenes quite frequently)
Sure, the presumption of innocence is a two-way street, but it does not always work these days for either party.
But to be fair, the article and the original paper discuss all your points as well. There is no "blame everything on the police" attitude there.
And body cameras help with all of those: They can substantiate claims against misbehaving police officers, but they can also prove their innocence.
Also, it may very well be that citizens, when aware of the cameras, are less confrontational and ill-behaving towards officers, not just officers on best behavior.
And if an officer OR a citizen behaves badly, with body cameras you get instant video proof, which helps the victim no matter if the victim was the citizen OR the police officer.
The article explicitly addresses this question and presents very compelling evidence that the video cameras affect police behavior more so than civilian behavior.
Against all expectations, there was no significant difference in complaints between officers wearing cameras that week and those going without.
Strange, right? It seems logical to expect that when the camera was actually present, it would act, as intended, as an impartial witness, cooling heads on both sides of an encounter. But complaints dropped even when officers weren’t using the cameras.
“It may be that, by repeated exposure to the surveillance of the cameras, officers changed their reactive behaviour on the streets — changes that proved more effective and so stuck,” explained the study’s lead author, Barak Ariel, in a Cambridge news release. “With a complaints reduction of nearly 100 percent across the board, we find it difficult to consider alternatives, to be honest.”
The researchers dub this effect “contagious accountability” — learning to do the right thing even when no one is watching.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes the public even knows how to tell if police officers are wearing body cameras. Even the police themselves don't make the distinction when they are the ones wearing it.
Why would the public make a distinction when even the one person who should know, can't?
You're assuming that the civilians are acting under the assumption that the police are wearing body cameras. But why would you assume this? Most police nationwide do not wear body cameras. For most of recent history, the police in those districts did not wear body cameras. When the study was started, obviously the police themselves knew they were wearing cameras, and hence, would have acted differently because they know they were being watched. But the vast majority of civilians do not follow local-police-news closely enough to assume that the police are wearing body cameras.
> The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes the public even knows how to tell if police officers are wearing body cameras.
I don't see how it assumes that at all. I think the gist is that police behave in a way that produces less complaints when they are conscious that their actions are being recorded.
> The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?
The presumption of innocence is a legal standard to partially offset the immense might of the state. The prosecutors should need to do a very good job establishing that you actually did something before they can put you in a cage.
When it's people talking about statistical measures that don't directly disproportionately impact any given person, no, it doesn't.
Did you even read the whole comment you replied to? The op didn't say the statistics were wrong, he/she just pointed out that they could easily be explained by either side of the confrontation behaving better in the presence of a camera. Which one behaves better is not covered by the stats.
> The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?
Historically, the presumption of innocence has two legs: one, the Latin "Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, (the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies). This is something like the theory of knowledge rule that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
The other leg, in the western legal tradition, is that the state (and particularly the prosecution) is always the bearer of the burden of truth.
In this sense, it actually makes sense to presume that the police are "guilty," or at least that they must prove that their actions are legal and comport with the boundaries of state power.
So, in the western tradition, it is only those accused by the state of a crime who enjoy the presumption of innocence; people acting on behalf of the state do not.
> The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?
Why? Presumption of innocence is not a feature of any normal human relationships; it's a special restriction we place on the way the government relates to us. What is the benefit of extending the presumption back to the government? The police are allowed to take your money, rough you up, or kill you if they choose. We can't do that to them.
Among decent, rational people the presumption of innocence is a function of their normal human relationships. There is nothing special about assuming someone is innocent until sufficient evidence is presented.
Presuming departments track complaint resolution outcomes, we should see the rate of "legitimate" cases go up.
E.g., if 100 cases were filed, 50 frivolous, and the officer in question was sanctioned in 10 cases, that's a 10% rate. If the number of frivolous cases drops to 0, the "sanction" rate should double to 20%.
I have had numerous encounter with police and never, ever had a problem, nor witnesses bad behaviour on the part of police.
Conversely - cops, as a normal part of doing their jobs have to deal with drunk, crazy, wild and violent people quite often.
I'm not making a comment about the article, but about the 'presumption of innocence'. I think 'bad cops' are probably an issue of culture within specific policing stations and groups.
> I have had numerous encounter with police and never, ever had a problem, nor witnesses bad behavior on the part of police.
Well that is just amazing to be honest. I have LEO in the family and they all did personality 180s after joining. They converted to an "us vs them" mentality. All of there coworkers were identical.
I am not saying that they ran around being assholes to everyone, but they literally started thing less of "others". Every person in the community is a criminal now, they just haven't been caught.
You can even see it in action. If you have ever came across a person in the grocery store wearing a high-and-tight and they looked at you with bafflement as to why you did not immediately get out of their way when they were passing -- that was an off-duty cop.
BTW, the power-trip doesn't just apply to cops, if you know any correctional officers, you will see the same phenomena.
This power-to-bad-behavior conversion isn't just some anecdotal stories, it is well-known in repeated physiology studies.[1]
You can see it in their personal lives as well.[2][3]
Add to us-vs-them mentality and inflated sense of power a below average IQ (PDF page 92), and you have what we have today.
I was under the impression that the Stanford Prison Experiment was not a reliable experiment due to a number of confounding factors. Introduction of bias by the lead researcher, influencing the participant's behavior is one such factor. In this way, the experiment is more of an example of how not to conduct research, more so than a reliable indicator on how power goes to people's heads.
"The high and tight is a military variant of the crew cut. It is a very short hairstyle most commonly worn by men in the armed forces of the U.S. It is also popular with law enforcement officers and other public safety personnel."
The Stanford prison experiment does not apply to cop to citizen relationships. The power imbalance isn't even close to comparable.
Consider your anecdote about getting out of the way in the grocery store. If that happened in a prison the guard would just immediately punish the person. A cop can't do that.
The difference is a random citizen shooting you will go to jail if they get caught. A police officer will get paid leave with a presumption that you did something to cause it while it is "investigated" by their brothers/sisters in blue.
If their brothers/sisters in blue don't like them then they will be arrested for murder if they acted inappropriately.
Otherwise the investigation will likely be half-assed or purposely sabotaged. The "blue line" is a real thing, most cops won't take down other cops unless they have to/dislike the other cop.
Every place is different and while there are obviously bad police officers, there are also some very good ones.
I once had a friend here in Japan who unfortunately was starting to suffer from mental illness. She let her visa lapse and when her employer asked her about it, she decided to do a runner. I caught up with her at the bus station and it seems that her employer had called the police because they showed up too. First thing she did was punch one of the two officers.
In Japan, this is a pretty big deal. I'm sure many people have heard stories about the Japanese police. I tend to be quite careful of them because they have pretty broad powers. Anyway, calm as anything these guys restrained her and just held her until she calmed down. Then they explained how her visa worked and told her where to go to fill in the paper work to get it all sorted. They explained that her employer still wanted to employ her and to help her get things worked out. And then after everything was all straightened out, they left.
Without arresting her.
This was a godsend to my friend who was able to sort things out and as her disease progressed was able to go back home for treatment. I'm still grateful to those police officers. I don't think all Japanese police are like that, but there really are people who are good at their jobs.
They should be able to justify every single action they perform while on duty anyway, and it should be easy with a bodycam. I see no problem in presumption of guilt for officers on duty.
At the very least it'll give them incentive to actually wear the cam.
I am not disagreeing that police officers should be held to a higher standard than others (with great power comes great responsibility), but nobody should ever be presumed guilty and be left having to prove their innocence.
No one is forcing you to become a police officer. If you want special privileges (e.g. allowed to use deadly force) then you also get special responsibilities.
Why would it be dangerous ? As I said, that officer needs to account for all his actions during working hours anyway, so there should never be a problem proving his/her innocence.
Or to put it another way: if an officer has, say an hour, on a working day in which (s)he can't account for his/her whereabouts and actions, wouldn't that be a good reason to suspect and investigate that officer ? What was he/she doing in that time, why did he/she feel the need to drop 'off the grid' for an hour ? If they have nothing to hide, then why would it be a problem ?
Making the police officer career more risky by imposing arbitrary sanctions in case of bad luck isn't going to improve your chances of recruiting good police officers.
Yes, there are special responsibilities, but due process is important. If it's not happening, make that process work. Your approach is similar to "there is too much crime, let's make more laws so that more things are criminal".
> Making the police officer career more risky by imposing arbitrary sanctions in case of bad luck isn't going to improve your chances of recruiting good police officers.
No, it lowers the chances of recruiting bad apples. People don't do anything wrong and who keep the bodycam running all day have nothing to fear.
> Your approach is similar to "there is too much crime, let's make more laws so that more things are criminal".
There is too much crime because the worst criminals work in law enforcement. This would be a way to weed them out.
They should he held to a higher standard when off-duty as well. Many (most?) officers carry even when off-duty and would take on the first responder role if needed.
In my state anyone with a CDL who drives with any amount of alcohol in his system is guilty of DUII. It doesn't matter if you are on vacation, driving your personal vehicle, hundreds of miles from home or driving an 18 wheeler through rush hour traffic. We should hold police to a similar higher standard.
> They should he held to a higher standard when off-duty as well.
Maybe slightly higher, but that is not the point. The point is that a police officer on duty is not a person doing a job, he is the embodiment of the government. If a police officer shoots an innocent man, that man was not killed by a rogue police officer, that man was killed by an agent of the government.
For this reason they should be kept on an extremely short leash. As in: if we could have a computer take over their brain during duty hours and basically turn the officers into remote-controlled robots then we should.
I think a lot of that is that there is a huge power imbalance in the interaction. So the presumption of guilt on the officer's part may have something to do with the fact that they are completely in control of the situation from an authoritative standpoint.
Having said that, all of these police body camera studies I've been exposed to say that ALL parties behave better, and every conversation I've had about this acknowledges the same.
There's a long catalogue of evidence that the police have been insitutionally racist (and other issues). Specifically in the UK, but I suspect the US has a similar catalogue of evidence.
> Maybe the public...
The conclusion drawn seems like the most realistic explanation. Your alternatives don't seem credible considering the change also occurred when police weren't wearing cameras.
[Edit: "have been" rather than "are" insitutionally racist, evidence is in the past and will hopefully stay that way)
Excuse the Daily Mail link sorry and the other link is a police murder with the mayor discussing police racism. The Dutch police are very good by nearly all accounts, but it's not hard to find accounts of racism.
The UK police have a very long and much worse history of racism with the Met being front and centre (less so now than 10+ years ago though). I won't post a link for them as it is extremely easy to find many many cases unfortunately. Pick you examples with them, beatings, killings, harassment, illegal searches etc. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3163974/Boy-13-handcuffed-motorcycle-police-officer-run.html
This is not an incident however, this is happening all over Europe. Police are hesitant to reveal real rates of crime, Dutch police advising victims not to press charges because the Northern-African suspects are known to make your life miserable. Calling statistical profiling racial profiling instead etc.
Ethnic profiling is bunk. It kind of works in areas like Israel, where there is literally a war on and the goal of profiling is not to determine criminality, but which side of the war you are on.
If you're trying to determine criminality, ethnic profiling doesn't work. It's been proven time and again. It's amazing that we're still having this debate 70 years after the West shed eugenics.
> proven time and again ... after the West shed eugenics
Given how you conflate racial profiling and eugenics, I'd be skeptical of what you consider proven.
But you are right, race doesn't correlate directly with criminality - but it does correlate if it correlates with something else that does e.g. religious membership.
"The conclusion drawn seems like the most realistic explanation."
I'm not sure I agree. I imagine either of us could find evidence of police corruption, institutional racism, or myriad other issues. There are a lot of police in the world.
I'm not excusing racist or crooked police, I'm suggesting that there could be multiple explanations for the drop in complaints.
"Your alternatives don't seem credible considering the change also occurred when police weren't wearing cameras."
And that would seem to indicate that on average, the officer's in question were behaving better, and I expect that's the case. It could also mean that the public was aware of the cameras too, and that word gets around, which is likely in smaller communities.
If I had to guess, I would guess it's the former. But I'm not a police officer, an ombudsman, or a victim of police abuse, so I would be speaking from zero experience.
There's also a long catalogue of evidence that white people as a group have been institutionally racist.
Your own race (just as an example) is none of my business, and obviously I sincerely hope you're not racist (which I very much doubt you are), but in any case I'm in no rush to jump to conclusions about either, which is kind of my point.
Presumption of innocence exists for more reasons than just protecting citizens from the state (although that's an important one). It's because our gut instincts are most unscientific judges of character.
I will say that I'm glad they've found a strategy that seems to have such a strong positive impact on police-public relations, though.
> ...there could be multiple explanations for the drop in complaints
Uh huh, so, this particular study covered 1,429,868 officer hours across the six different police forces in the UK and the US, and found a 93% drop in complaints. Some forces found a 100% drop in complaints.
Meanwhile, here's another Cambridge study from 2012 that shows police cameras reduce the incidence of unacceptable use of force.
I had thought it was clear that I was referring to this discussion, i.e. that the drop in complaints was due to the use of body cameras, but it was not proven why.
Provide citations when you state such loaded things (cops are racist). Otherwise things just degrade people into two sides (each group starting and staying on the side they agree with).
> Specifically, the study showed that during the given time period, minority neighborhoods do experience higher levels of FIO activity, approximately 1% of FIO’s completed per month, when controlling for crime.
> It also showed that Black subjects are 8% more likely to be stopped repeatedly and 12% more likely to be frisked and searched when controlling for other factors like Criminal History and Gang Membership in Violent Crime areas.
> The researchers' preliminary statistical analysis found that the racial composition of Boston neighborhoods drove police-civilian encounters even after controlling for crime rates and other factors. [emphasis in original]
The only "loaded" thing here is your assertion that cops being racist is a loaded statement, and the implication that it needs citations to be treated as a reasonable thing to say. That is the consensus position, common enough to be treated as fact in state supreme court decisions, and the one with the weight of evidence behind it. It is no more "loaded" than a claim that the earth revolves around the sun.
State Supreme Court decisions have never been made based on the statement that all police in the US are racist.
You gave links only supporting the behavior in Boston, so the only conclusion that can be made is about Boston. Assuming the demographics of Boston are the same as Los Angeles or Atlanta requires a level of stupidity that would preclude you from operating a computer, so I assume you are being willfully misleading to grind an ax. Take it to another forum or discuss it with a therapist.
I don't intend to spend my day providing citations for statements that aren't reasonably disputed, just in case some random guy on the internet disagrees.
Police organisations (in the UK at least) accept they have a historical problem with institutional racism. This is a well discussed problem.
UK police are currently putting significant effort into fixing the problem.... for example recent work to reduce the disproportionately high drop-out rate amongst applicants from minorities in order to help make the police representative of the community at large.
> I don't intend to spend my day providing citations
If it takes a day, then I assume the evidence isn't at hand, in which case how do you know it exists?
Do you have first-hand experience of this evidence, or are you just assured it exists by sources you consider "reasonable".
you are also a "random guy on the internet" and since you made the claim, the burden is on you. Some hand-waving "reasonable dispute" doesn't cut it - if it's so obvious, accepted and supported, it should be as easy to demonstrate.
I'd also add you comments about historical racism lack context - i.e timelines, impact, magnitude etc all of which would feed into the main question; Are the UK police racist today? Muddying the waters with vague or unsupported claims doesn't help answer this question, especially given that there are lots of efforts to answer it, and reasonable sources of information in existence.
You misunderstand. hueving didn't ask me for a citation for this point, he asked me to provide citations in general. I don't intend to spend MY day (not "a" day) providing citations for every statement I make in general. If people ask for a specific citation fair enough; that's not what happened here.
> Do you have first-hand experience of this evidence, or are you just assured it exists by sources you consider "reasonable".
I worked with the people who ran various RCTs for the police, and listened to them present their findings which were then implemented as policy. So no, not first-hand, no, but good enough for me.
A reasonable standard to maintain IMHO, especially for topics that are "such loaded". Then maybe we disagree on how controversial the claim is? I don't think "the UK police has had problems with racism" is controversial (well, maybe the magnitude is, especially compared to the US), but whether this still applies generally today I think is controversial.
Attempts at improving the police has gone on for quite q while, so I wouldn't assume the question "Have they been successful; Are the police different now?".
> A reasonable standard to maintain IMHO, especially for topics that are "such loaded".
Loaded perhaps. Disputed? Not with significant credibility in my opinion.
> but whether this still applies generally today I think is controversial.
I've used the past tense throughout, and even a footnote in my comment on that exact point. Nor have I referred to racism, only to institutional racism which is a very different thing.
A lot could have happened in the 7 years since the Macpherson report, but it's not "controversial" to expect evidence of change before assuming that all the problems have disappeared and everything is now completely fine.
> Are these findings public?
Yes. The one I mentioned was published last year. I don't want to post links relating to clients on here so will leave the googling to you if you're bothered.
If you believe anyone who disputed the claim would find it hard to find a credible source, fair enough, lay down that challenge. The question here is can you find a credible source for the claim yourself first?
Even if there where absolutely no credible sources of dispute, the burden would still exist; Or at least, you need enough evidence to dispute.
> I've used the past tense throughout
Maybe I misread the thread;
headmelted: "I'm a little surprised that in the article, and in the comments here, there's such a presumption of guilt on the part of the police."
you (responding to this line): "There's a long catalogue of evidence that the police have been insitutionally racist (and other issues)."
I interpreted "There's a long catalogue" as meaning a presumption of guilt was justified because of past issues.
> A lot could have happened
between "assuming that all the problems have disappeared" and "assuming nothing has changed" is "we don't know". You don't have to assume anything, but when you do (and make a claim) it's then you have a burden to justify it.
Then only use so much evidence as to support your claim.
Evidence of you claim is only evidence of your claim after it is verified, at which point the work has been done. before then it's potential evidence. You don't know what evidence you have until you investigate it, so again, suggesting that there's a lot is just speculation.
If the claim requires a great level detail, then it's your fault for making an overly broad claim without evidence; again, if the work has yet to be done, you can't be sure what the picture will look like - you can only assume that you are able to prove a "wonderfully detailed picture" of whatever you claim; This is a faith-based argument; you have faith in you ability to demonstrate, and in the apparent quality of evidence, before actually having done it.
A google search isn't research for many reasons (e.g. the bias in focus of a search engine, which is a tool for finding specific information, not building a representative/comprehensive summary of information on the internet; The 'mememtic survival bias' and/or 'publish bias' of what kind of information is most commonly found on the internet etc etc etc).
One relevant reason is just because a url is returned, doesn't mean it's a relevant source (and multiple urls may all have the same underlying source/s); checking those sources would be the job of whoever made the claim. Until this is done you only have a blob of data, not a verified list of sources.
If this hasn't been done, then you don't know, and are just pushing the burden of investigation on me - I'd assume if I find any invalid source among that google search, you'd just tell me to keep looking until I found a valid one? Why do I have to spend my time to support your claim? I should be send on a wild goose chase to find something that you claim to exist...
It is true that this is well discussed, but usually those discussions center on anecdotes and shoddy statistics rather than meaningful evidence.
The prevalence of all of this biased discussion simply leads more people to believe their biased worldviews to be factual when it hasn't really been demonstrated.
I'm not convinced that a study that relies on IQ (which is itself a biased metric) and self-reported data (self-reported data is low quality) makes the picture "unclear".
Fryer's "Use of Force" paper would be a stronger argument I feel, but even that relies on very patchy data and doesn't take into account the higher likelyhood of minorities being stopped without cause.
Managing a small law enforcement operation is hard. On a national scale it's a monumental task, and human beings are biased and irrational at the best of times.
Not sure why the US doesn't record statistics on things like police shootings. Given the lack of data, if US law enforcement doesn't suffer from insitutional racism then it may well be through pure dumb luck; as there's no way to compare departments, or tell which policies or initiatives have a positive or negative effect.
> I'm not convinced that a study that relies on IQ (which is itself a biased metric) and self-reported data (self-reported data is low quality) makes the picture "unclear".
1. I didn't intend to communicate that this paper alone makes the picture unclear. This paper is just one source that indicates no bias in law enforcement.
2. This paper explains why IQ is a reasonable factor
3. This paper explains why this self-reported data is reasonable
4. The data from convicted criminals, victims, and law-enforcement all tell a similar story (African Americans commit crimes disproportionately)
I agree with you that there are huuuuge gaps in our data collection, and this is a really serious problem. Besides the gaps you mentioned, Eric Holder's justice department stopped releasing information on race of perpetrators in 2009 and many large (liberal) cities don't report this information either. This information is obviously critical if we want to determine whether or not we have a racial bias in law enforcement.
I share your surprise. I'm disappointed in the comments here; usually this is where I come to find level-headed conversations based on data and evidence. Instead the top comments are all unsupported and political.
To this commenter and its parent: please don't complain about downvotes or accuse other community members like you have. On controversial topics, it's even more important that we comment reflectively, civilly, and substantively because it's difficult enough to stay on-topic.
I'm deeply skeptical that a 93% drop in complaints is solely down to bad police officers playing nice for the cameras.
This is easy enough to show. And it is the most obvious and natural conclusion. Your skepticism is fine, but I'm confused why you can't understand my lack of it. In my experience cops are trying to get away with anything they can.
The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely
Nonsense! Being a police officer is not a right. I don't have a "presumption of innocence" regarding my job. I have to actively prove I'm doing it well. Same goes for cops.
I understand that this is a controversial topic in the US, probably moreso than elsewhere, and for very important reasons, but is it really impartial for the study, the article, or the comments here to draw the conclusion that police were "better behaved" because they were being filmed?
Maybe the public were better behaved when they being filmed.
Maybe the police were, in some cases, behaving as they normally do but the public were less inclined to raise complaints that may have been spurious as they knew there was evidence of the actual exchange.
I don't doubt that behaviour of individual officers is a factor and was likely affected in a positive way here, but I'm deeply skeptical that a 93% drop in complaints is solely down to bad police officers playing nice for the cameras.
The presumption of innocence needs to be a two-way street, surely?